I once worked for PlayStation, and other stories.

The three Gamer Advisory Panel guys at PlayStation HQ, from the left; Monteusz Monroe, Jeff Olson and Joe Orellano.

*Note: I plan to add more pictures to this article when time allows, so keep your eyes peeled, as I will more than likely re-post this on Facebook then!

Let’s all hop into my wayback machine and spin the dial until it lands on April 1, 2008, regardless of how many spins it takes to land it there.  This date is one of the most awesome dates I have experienced in my lifetime, because not only was it a really good April Fool’s Day, but something happened that day to make me first question the seriousness of the situation, and then it morphed into something for which I am extremely grateful.

After a rather long, tiring day at work, I came home to my apartment, warmed up some leftovers and turned on my PlayStation 3 to play some Warhawk.  While I was waiting on a room to load, I decided to check my E-mail.  Out of the handful of E-mails I received, one stood out as the most interesting.  It was from the PlayStation Underground (what is now known as the PlayStation Network.)  The subject simply read, “The Gamer Advisory Panel wants you.”

It being April Fool's Day, I thought it was some sort of practical joke. Gamer Advisory Panel? Me? Sure...

Needless to say, I clicked the link and read its contents carefully.

Seeing the official PlayStation Underground logo in it gave the E-mail some credibility.  The fact that it also included my name was a plus.  Then, it went on to call me one of PlayStation’s “elite” gamers, it recognized my passion for gaming, and made me feel special by saying that my strong, informed opinion was valued.  Follow that up with an exclusive invitation to join the PlayStation Gamer Advisory Panel (G.A.P. for short – and no, it has nothing to do with that clothing store) and a reminder, stating, “Remember, G.A.P. membership is the highest honor in the PlayStation Underground.  We know you’re up to the task.”

I couldn’t say no.

I clicked the link, filled out the entry questionnaire, and joined the ranks of elite gamers.  In the G.A.P., I have my own personal blog, where I have used it to write insightful articles, and plenty of silly rants, much like this one.  Sure, my G.A.P. membership has perks, but I believe the best thing out of it has been the hundreds of new friends I have gained over the years.  My PS3 friend’s list had a handful of people on it for a long while, and then after joining the G.A.P., I easily reached the maximum number of friends, rather quickly.

As I’m repeating this again, I just have to say it – I am incredibly grateful for all of my friends that I have gained through the Gamer Advisory Panel – they are the greatest bits of swag anybody could ask for.

This brings me to an interesting topic – one that many of you have been begging to read about for quite a while now.

In the past, I had read other GAPer’s blogs about them being contacted by PlayStation with job opportunities to work at events.  I’ve even seen a video that PlayStation posted on YouTube where they grabbed a GAPer to work with them at a music festival.  This is awesome, and smart.  There are countless companies that have customer loyalty programs that they do not tap into as valuable resources.  I’ll use a Mitch Hedberg joke as an example.  Say you’re a comedian, trying to get a job acting as a comedian.  They say, “You’re a comedian, great!  Can you write screen plays?”  I don’t know how many times I have walked into an electronics store, asked one of the employees an uncomplicated electronics question, only to learn that said employee knows nothing about electronics, and only recently learned how to power-on a computer and check E-mail.  Therefore, it makes me really happy to see qualified individuals get targeted specifically to perform a certain job.  PlayStation still does this.

It is no secret that I live in the middle of nowhere in northwest Alabama.  Unfortunately, there are rarely any gaming-related events that take place in the country’s deep south, save in Atlanta and elsewhere in Florida from time to time.  There was one time at the City Stages music festival in Birmingham where the PlayStation Experience truck was present, hawking PSP and PS2 games.  I checked it out, and it was awesome.  Then, I went to see Shinedown.  Extra awesomesauce.

The night of Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2010, will go down as one that still gives me tingles.  I was playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with my GAP friends in a game night event, when my iPhone dinged, telling me I had a new E-mail.  It was from the PlayStation Network.  I put the controller down and read the subject.  “Be a Part of History, and Get Paid For It! Represent PlayStation at the 2010 Voodoo Music Festival.”

I tapped on the E-mail and read on, learning that my membership in the GAP made me eligible for the offer, and all that I needed to do was send in a cover letter and my resume to be considered for the position.  I did just so, and E-mailed it the next day in a nice, neat PDF package while I was at work, and I let it go, figuring that my chances were pretty slim of being picked.

The next day, at about 11 a.m., I received a phone call from a strange number I didn’t recognize.  I answered, and learned that PlayStation was interested in me, and they wanted to do a quick interview.  I did just so, and had a great time talking with my friendly interviewer, Emily.  After about 10 minutes on the phone, I hung up, and I could feel the electricity buzzing off of me.  I picked up my dream again and embraced it, after I learned that I would be contacted by the end of the week or the first of the next week to let me know if I was picked for the job.

I told my boss about what I had done, and begged her to let me take two vacation days to attend the festival if I was chosen to go.  I explained the importance of the event to me, and the fact that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and that if I didn’t bite, I wouldn’t  be thrown a bone like that again.  Thankfully, my boss is awesome.  She was incredibly excited for me, and granted me permission to take vacation to do this.  I did not tell her that I was actually going to be hired and working for PlayStation, only that I was chosen to “represent” PlayStation.  Regardless, I was ecstatic.  I went ahead and booked my hotel for Oct. 28-31 in the neighboring municipality of Metairie, Louisiana, with the guarantee that if I had to cancel my reservation, I wouldn’t be charged any fees.  Thank you, William Shatner and Priceline. =)

Friday came around, and I left the office for home early, since I had to go cover a local high school football game that night for work.  (I am a reporter for a three-county newspaper, if you did not know.)  So while I was sitting in my recliner, blanket on, feet up, my phone rang.  It was that same strange number.  Emily answered.  She asked me how I was, and told her that it was Friday, so it was mandatory that I was doing excellent.  She laughed, and told me that PlayStation was offering me the job, and waned to know if I was still interested.  “Absolutely” is the answer I gave, surpressing a massive victory yell with every ounce of energy I had.  After the call ended, I jumped up and hit the ceiling, yelling my good news so loudly that the entire neighborhood could’ve heard me.  I called my wonderful girlfriend to tell her the good news, then shared it with my father, who lives in Texas.  My mother and sister then found out: I was going to go work for PlayStation in New Orleans on Halloween Weekend, right before my birthday!!!!!!!

The whole experience was very James Bond-ish at the beginning.  After a lovely overnight drive to Metairie, at 2:30 p.m. on the following Thursday, I was to dial a certain phone number and speak with a certain Katie.  Katie would then supply me with directions to the meeting location for my training.  I half expected that I would have to find a nondescript tree with Spanish moss dangling from it, tug gently on a certain strand of the moss, revealing a trapdoor at the bass of the tree, where hidden stairs would lead me to a bunker underground.

Nah, I was just led to the PlayStation HQ tent in the middle of the event grounds.  Not as exciting, I know, but believe me, it was still awesome, and intimidating!

Upon entering the massive tent, I met the Katie I spoke with on the phone, as well as another Katie, who was also working the event.  I had made it early, and they were waiting on the others to show up, so I was instructed to go inside and hang out with everybody until we got started.  I proceeded past a large display of touchscreen computers into an open area where a few benches had been set up, and several people were sitting in awkward silence.  I walked in, waved at everybody and said hello, stood there for a second and then asked if anybody else was there from the GAP.  I only got puzzled looks as my response, along with a few sideways-shaking heads.  I shrugged my shoulders, said, “Alright,” then proceeded to walk around the tents.

Aside from the 15 or so people who had also been hired, apparrently, I ran across 12 Sony Bravia 42-inch TVs, 12 PlayStation 3s, and a boatload of PlayStation Move controllers, PlayStation Eye Cameras, and displays explaining what games were being played at each setup.  There was DJ Hero 2, SingStar Dance, High Velocity Bowling, NBA 2K11 and Sports Champions in the front half of the tent.  Then, in the back half, were the real treats.  The five TVs that stood there were Sony Bravia 3D LED TVs.  That’s right, the games played there were playable in glorious 3D, and four of those games weren’t even available to the public yet!  HVB was one of the 3D games, then the others included The Fight: Lights Out!, Gran Turismo 5, MotorStorm Apocalypse and Killzone 3, all in Sony 3D!  Later, during our training, we were handed pairs of the Sony 3D glasses and shown a short demonstration of a few of the games.  I was one of the few who didn’t get to get a pair of glasses, but was told that in the morning, we would have plenty of downtime to sit around and play.

Eventually, I sat down next to a guy who asked me if he heard me say something about the GAP before.  I replied that I did, and he told me he was a GAP member, too.  His name was Jeff, and he had worked the event before, since he lived there in New Orleans.  As our training began, a few latecomers arrived.  One of which was the other GAP member that was hired for the event, Monteusz.  I later learned the pronunciation is pretty easy – like you combine the first parts of Monday and Tuesday – Mon-Tues.  Simple.  He’s a really great guy, extremely friendly and likeable.  So was Jeff.

We three were introduced at the start of our training to all of the people who were hired as the heavy hitters of the show.  The other hirees were informed that we were members of Sony’s Gamer Advisory Panel, and we represented the gaming elite, so if anyone had any questions or any problems, they were to ask one of us, because gaming is, of course, “all we do.”

Essentially, the GAPers were to stay in the PlayStation HQ and show off the gaming goodness to the happy festivalgoers.  No problem here!  I’ve managed to sell countless PlayStation 3s from talking to people in the past, or showing them the games when they visit, for no financial gain – just because I love PlayStation, its open platform, approach to technology and quality content.  Showing the games to people was not only extremely fun, but just as rewarding.  There was only one catch.

Because the PlayStation HQ was situated between two different stages, plus the fact that we had our own emcee inside the tent, blasting music and yakking his head off, that meant that I had to speak at the top of my voice in order for people to hear me, since I possess a lower-pitched, baritone of a voice.  This, of course, for three days straight, 11 hours a day, meant that by the end of the first day, my voice was all but gone.  No problem, I pushed through the pain and kept turning people on to the PS3, PS Move and Sony 3D.  It really was an incredibly fun time!

I’ve written this before, but when I was handed my official uniform (a midnight blue Polo with the PlayStation logo on the front, along with all the features of the PS3, and “Staff Only Does Everything” on the back) I couldn’t help but feel an enormous wave of pride come over me.  I was incredibly proud to be representing my favorite entertainment company, and helping other people come to love it as much as I do.  I was so proud to be the person that people came to asking questions about the tech or the games, and I was incredibly proud to help bat away peoples’ assumptions that the PS Move is exactly the same as the Nintendo Wii, but with better graphics!  (The only case where this is true is with The Fight: Lights Out! – That game just isn’t coded properly.  If it were programmed to actually use all of the Move’s tracking abilities, without the latency between input and outcome on the screen, then yes, it would be an excellent game)  It made me so proud to be able to hand people a pair of Sony 3D glasses and say, “Hey, we’ve got Killzone 3, Gran Turismo 5 and MotorStorm Apocalypse – games that aren’t available to the public yet, but you can play them right here, right now – IN 3D!!!!!!!”  I feel extremely comfortable that I was able to convince hundreds of people to purchase either a PS3 bundle, or Move/Sports Champions bundles, and I know for a fact that hundreds were thoroughly blown away by PlayStation gaming in 3D, and that I got a dozen solid confirmations that they would be buying a 3D TV in the near future.  Honestly, I have to include myself in that statistic, as well…

I was very leery about 3D gaming when it was all over E3 this year.  It just seemed so much like a gimmick to me.  However, after spending three days with the tech and becoming intimately familiar with it, I learned that it was totally something I wasn’t expecting!  I was very leery about 3D gaming when it was all over E3 this year.  It just seemed so much like a gimmick to me.  However, after spending three days with the tech and becoming intimately familiar with it, I learned that it was totally something I wasn’t expecting!  If I haven’t said it already, I want a 3D TV now, solely for the fact that 3D gaming has me extremely excited.  You can read more about my impressions about hands-on 3D gaming by visiting this link. http://www.aimlesspodcasts.com/2010/11/02/sony-3d-gaming-gimmick-or-gimmie/

As one of the three representatives of the Gamer Advisory Panel there, it was our job to basically fix anything that broke.  And since the event in New Orleans was the last stop of a long tour of less than ideal temperatures and plenty of wear and tear, there were a few instances of freezing, non-responsiveness, and then at least two times where people stood on the cables tethered to Move controllers (which were also charging them) and managed to swing the Move controller a wee bit too hard, severing the cable from the console.  Of course, the Move is a wireless controller, so this had no effect on them playing, so they just kept playing, without realizing what they had done.  Thankfully, no one got in trouble, and I just had to hunt down the people in charge who had the keys to the plastic boxes where we kept the consoles locked-away, so I could make the replacement with a new tethered controller.  Good times.

After standing on my feet for about 12 hours, the first day finally came to an end, and with it was one of the super incredible bonus perks for getting to go to the event.  You see, Tuesday, Nov. 2 this year was my birthday.  This event took place from Oct. 28-31.  Since I had finished working for the day, and I was inside the festival, and had my “vendor” wrist band on, that meant that I could go see whatever concerts I wanted to.

There was only one concert I wanted to see the whole weekend, and that was the headline act for Friday night, scheduled to start one hour after my shift ended.  The band I’m talking about is my favorite band in the entire world: Muse.

I asked my girlfriend’s brother, Jared, to go with me on this trip, because I mean, seriously… it was a free trip to New Orleans on Halloween weekend.  Unfortunately, Ashley couldn’t go with me, because she was studying for the most important exam in her life.  Because I wanted Jared to have a good time, and also because I would later be getting paid for working the event, I decided to help him buy tickets for two days of Voodoo, and told him it would be his Christmas and birthday present from me for the next few years to come.  He managed to get off work, and he rode with me down there.

Jared and I met up when I was done, and we headed to the area of New Orleans City Park where the Sony Stage and the Voodoo Stage were set up.  When I left the PlayStation HQ, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Weezer performing live.  Because we showed up late to the show, we ended up being at the rear end of the crowd.  Still, our spot was great, because there were some wooden posts sticking up out of the ground.  This made for an excellent object to sit down against, since my feet felt like they were incredibly sore, on fire, and would fall off if I stood on them any longer.

Rivers Cuomo and the other guys in Weezer did a great job and put on a fun show.  I told Jared that I wasn’t going to bother fighting my way to the front of the crowd for Muse.  As long as I was there and could hear them, that’s all that mattered to me.

Not long after that, there was a massive amount of screaming and cheering coming from directly behind me.  It turns out, Muse was performing on the Voodoo stage, which was only about 100 yards away from me.  Freaking out, I grabbed Jared, got to my feet and ran over to the stage, fighting my way through the crowd of people who were slowly realizing the same thing I just had.  Finally, when I could push no farther forward, and I was packed into the backs of other people like a sardine, my favorite band in the world took the stage.  I stood on my feet the whole time, oblivious to the pain.  I sang along with every song, jumped up and down with excitement in the sea of fellow Muse fans, and couldn’t get over the fact that essentially, I was getting paid to do all of that, right before my birthday.  I recorded almost the whole concert with my iPhone.

I still need to go back and watch “Time is Running Out,” because it was during that performance that someone jumped up and down in front of me a little too excitedly, flailing their arms in the air.  When they did this, their hands struck my hand, knocking my iPhone into the air.  I instantly stopped paying attention to the concert and watched in slow-motion as my phone went to my right, and down onto the ground, right next to a bunch of people who were also jumping up and down.

Swift as a fox, I hit the ground on all fours and saw the faint glow off the edges my iphone screen eminating from the ground: it had landed screen-down onto the grass.  Before I realized what happened next, a guy was jumping on it.  My right arm shot out like a dart, grabbed his entire ankle and violently lifted it up into the air while my left hand snatched the phone and began to wipe it off on my shirt.  I put the guy’s leg down, stood up, smiled and said, “No problem!”  He looked at me bewildered as to what had just happened, and watched me turn around, and proceed to start jumping around again wildly.

I had seen Muse once before, a year before, actually, when they opened for U2 in Atlanta.  They played an hour-long show, and that whole time I was hoping and praying that they’d end it with my favorite song: Knights of Cydonia.  Unfortunately, they ended the concert with “Time is Running Out.”  It’s not one of my favorites, but it’s still a good song that I happen to like.  I stayed for most of U2’s show, since, well, I’d paid for the tickets – but my reason for going was to see Muse.  At Voodoo, however, the show was about two hours long, and had THREE encores…

As soon as I heard Chris Wolstenholme (the bassist, and singer) wail out those long notes on his harmonica, combined with a super deep, long, pulsating bass blast, I lost my shit.  I knew what song they were about to play, and close the show with: Knights of Cydonia.  And they were only about 50 yards away from me, at that!  When I saw them in Atlanta, I was in the nosebleed section, so this was all so intense that I indeed freaked out and started screaming before anybody else, because I knew what was coming.  It was the best performance of Knights that I’ve ever heard, and I feel truly blessed to have been able to be there to witness it.

When we got back to our hotel room close to midnight that night, I realized that I had completely lost my voice.  This was not a good thing, because part of my job was, you know, talking with people – over two loud stages and an in-tent DJ, at that.  No worries, because it was totally worth it.  That was the absolute best concert I have ever been to in my entire life, hands down.

The next day, my feet were murdering me, despite new insoles and thick socks, and I forced a painful, barely audible voice, although I was yelling.  I thoroughly had a blast though, showing off games to hundreds of people.  By the time my shift ended, I was ready to collapse, and barely managed to stick around to see Ozzy Osbourne.  He still rocks, quite hard indeed.

On Sunday, Halloween, I saw a multitude of people dressed up for the holiday, including Beetlejuice and Lydia, Captain Morgan, hippies, goths, vampires, one demon who spared my soul because I handed him some 3D glasses, and especially zombies galore.  One girl wore a bikini made strictly from sunflowers, while others were dressed like medieval bar wenches.  There were also a few fairy princesses (both female and male versions.)  Out of all the costumed people who showed up, I had to mess with two guys.  Into the PlayStation HQ walked two guys, one in a red shirt with blue overalls, and the other in a green shirt with blue overalls, sporting thick mustaches, and wearing red and green hats.  Yep.  Mario and Luigi.  I walked up to them and said, “Woah, woah, woah…  Nintendo characters?  Seriously?  This is PlayStation.  Get the heck out.”  They looked at me bewildered for a minute, then I laughed hard, slapped them on the backs and haned them some 3D glasses, saying, “I’m just seriously messing with you.  Come on in and have some fun!”  They laughed and stayed for a few hours, having a good time.  Mario told me he was actually going to buy a PS3 for himself when he got paid again.  That made me cheer a silent victory cheer on the inside.  By the end of Sunday, I couldn’t feel my feet anymore.  This was a good thing, I’m sure.

After Sunday was over, We GAP members stayed an extra hour and helped unplug all of the consoles and peripherals, prepped everything for shipping back to Sony, and secured the tent, and expressed my sincere thanks to the people who were my bosses for the weekend.  Jared drove us the 6-7 hour trip back to Alabama, where I got about two hours of sleep before having to go in to work the next morning, without a voice, with feet that I wanted to chop off, and after having one of the grandest adventures of my life.  I even developed bronchitis a week later from the event, which I’m still suffering, as of Nov. 16, 2010.  Would I do it all over again if I got the chance this weekend?  Absolutely.